The Lord, speaking of their condition when He would have left them, bids them “Love one another, as I have loved you” a wondrous manner of love; and they are called to exercise it. Wisdom is needed with love, so as to make it productive of good in another. This love to them of which He speaks here, is not God’s love to a sinner; but Christ’s to His disciples while in the midst of them, meeting their weakness.
In the degree in which I am obedient I get the communications of His mind. The great thing here is confidence and intimacy; not theirs in Christ, but His treating them with confidence. He puts full confidence in those whom He has associated with Himself. “I call you friends”—He will not call them servants, though they are such; He makes companions, as associated with Him, and He reveals the Father’s thoughts to them, bringing them into the intimacy He has with His Father. He tells them everything He had heard of the Father. What a place this was to put them in! For if they were not fit to receive these communications, He was betraying the confidence of His Father.
We have received a divine nature, which makes us capable of enjoying another world. But then Christ is the One who fills that other world; therefore we must know Him, if we would know what that world is.
The disciples were called out of the world, and linked together in service to the glory of the Father. What separates us from the world is, that Christ has chosen us out of it. “Ye are not of the world,” &c. A time will come to every soul to test it as to which has the most value for it—Christ or the world. There must be, then, the standing alone; not without Christ, but without known helps.
How can the world bear that we who believe should go and say, I am in Christ, and you are lying in that wicked one? Not that I would say it, but it would show them their real place. Now Christ comes to us and says, “I have chosen you out of the world.”
While in the world I may speak against it as much as I like. Once on Christ’s side, the world will be up in arms. The felt presence of the Holy Ghost gives a consciousness of guidance which makes me go on happily and cheerfully. I am led along every step without thinking for myself.